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Member Advice Summary
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Homosexuality and marriage
by johngo | May 11 '05
If the civil aspects of marriage are separated from the religious aspects, much of the controversy surrounding the acceptability of same-sex partnerships disappears.Return to opinion
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kudos and other granola snacks (Reply to this comment)
by voxpoptart
imagine the physical differences between men and women, then imagine another kind of creature that stands physically to a man, as a man stands to a woman. You get a thing much like Frankenstein's monster, only not so well dressed. If the choice was living with a creature like that, I'd certainly consider living with another man.
Easily the most sensible highlight of a remarkably sensible piece in general - many kudos apiece, as well, for your simple answers to "should government be involved in marriage?", and for being the first person in world history to say _anything_ interesting about Charles and Diana.
I don't agree with you, at least in the medium and long run, about gay "marriage": i don't see any reason the term shouldn't be normalized eventually. But i'm afraid you're right that pressing the word issue, at a time when the legal rights behind it are still in doubt, is provocative and counterproductive.
cheers,
- Brian
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May 15 '05
10:01 am PDT
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Re: Re: I am astonished--- (Reply to this comment)
by gaviidae
Hi John--
I don't feel much compulsion to defend religions in general, or Christianity in particular. But I DO have to note that a good many people of good intention and reasonable intelligence and scholarship DO choose religious belief as an anchor in their lives. I do not, but I feel I must respect their belief. (There are many, of course who are religious but do NOT fit my description, and they do not necessarily deserve respect)
You said:
Since religions make contradictory claims, it is evident that if one is right, all the others must be wrong.
I think it might be analagous to the five blind men describing an elephant, one having a hold of its tail, another it's trunk, another its leg, another its belly, etc. Their descriptions are completely contradictory, yet accurate in it's limited way. I think one could include physics and cosmology in that analogy, since they also involve contradictions, and leave many questions unanswered!
This leads me to ask What is religion good for?
Many believe it gives meaning and purpose to their life, that would otherwise not be possible for them. For example, that's how my mother saw it, and I would never have denied it to her face, even though I do not, cannot see it that way>
---through religion true morality derived from god is made available to the people.
And the scary thing about it is that they rely on vague and amgiguous writings that they believe are absolute, inerrant truth---never mind that there are a thousand interpretations!
All that religions are good for is to provide illusory consolation for the fact that we are all going to die and hardly any of us wants to.
Well---evidently that's a pretty important consolation for many of us mere mortals----
Gavia
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May 13 '05
5:13 pm PDT
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Re: Re: Re: Amen, Brother! (Reply to this comment)
by johngo
My problem with gay marriage is not to do with any condemnation of my own. If people want to contract to live together until death do them part that is up to them, nothing to do with me. It could be two men, or two women, or a dozen men, or a dozen women, or one man and a dozen women, or a dozen men and one women, or any conceivable combination. What I find intellectually unacceptable is the claim that you can be a flawless christian and expect to marry, in the christian sense, a member of your own sex. You can't. This isn't to do with justice, but logic.
John
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May 13 '05
12:48 pm PDT
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Re: Re: Amen, Brother! (Reply to this comment)
by trust12345
You're quite right, the designation of marriage for gays would be/is offensive to many Christians, but in your man Rawls' Veil of Ignorance state, one would not be able to predict ending up a Christian or homosexual (or both, to make matters more confusing). No doubt the prevailing majority's perspective/feelings/traditions governing marriage resist change and acceptance of something seemingly antithetical to marriage itself, but from the perspective of some [many?/all?] gay couples, these traditions are exclusionary. You may be correct that the best viable solution for all, considering the deeply entrenched mores surrounding marriage and the church, is to allow gays a marriage only by name (civil union, etc), but that may not be the most just solution (again, thinking of Rawls, inclusiveness, etc).
-John
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May 13 '05
5:25 am PDT
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Re: Amen, Brother! (Reply to this comment)
by johngo
Thank you for the comment. One of the canards that religious people continue to perpetuate is that without religion you cannot have ethics. Part of my reason for taking part in write-offs like this one and pranapana's write-off on abortion is to show how careful thought and a concern for other people's feelings, and this includes the feelings of groups with which I am not in sympathy, can lead to reasonable social compromises. Anybody who thought about gay marriage would have realised that the concept would be extremely offensive to many christians. If you can have the thing---Didn't some chap say something about roses and scent?---a civil contract, and an optional religious blessing, with a different and less offensive name, why not compromise on the name?
John
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May 12 '05
11:41 pm PDT
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Re: I am astonished--- (Reply to this comment)
by johngo
I was astonished too.
The problem of religion is epitomised by poor old Chazzer's attitude. Henry VIII who was awarded the title, Fidei Defensor, Defender of the Faith, by the reigning pope, for a theological rebuttal of Lutheran theology. (Henry was orthodox in all matters except the temporal claims of the See of Rome to tell him how to organise his succession). Prince Charles, when his mother dies, inherits the title. Prince Charles, dim bulb flickering and sparking occasionally as the few neurons fire sporadically, once said that he wanted to be a defender of faiths. As the claims of christianity contradict the claims of islam and the claims of islam contradict the claims of christianity, there is no consistent way that he can defend both. Add in hinduism, buddhism, taoism, confucianism, jainism etc, etc, it is impossible to find anything that they share in common, so there is nothing left for him to defend. I suppose that at a stretch you could claim that he would like to defend a religious, that is to say, irrational view of the world, but all that does is to defy the value of reason in our attempts to understand it. If he wishes simply to defend freedom of religion, he doesn't need to set himself up as the defender of all religions.
Since religions make contradictory claims, it is evident that if one is right, all the others must be wrong. Even in the christian community different sects take the same view. Recently an extreme protestant sect in Scotland split because a member of the sect who was a member of the British government attended the funeral service of a colleague in a Roman catholic church. One faction held that he should be expelled, the other that he should be forgiven. They were unable to reconcile their differences and there are now two extreme protestant sects where there used to be one.
John Donne wrote of christian sects
Careless Phrygius doth abhor all as one
Who knowing some women wh*res dares marry none.*
It's worse than that. All the women are wh*res except one. Donne's advice is to try as many as you can find, until you find the right one. Not perhaps the advice appropriate to finding a wife, and the conceit rather falls to pieces.
This leads me to ask What is religion good for?
The tangible good that is claimed for religion is that through religion true morality derived from god is made available to the people. Another misrepresentation. Concepts such as justice have no place in religious morality.
All that religions are good for is to provide illusory consolation for the fact that we are all going to die and hardly any of us wants to.
John
------
*...and the damned epinions censor won't allow me to quote a line from the second greatest English poet!
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May 12 '05
12:41 pm PDT
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I am astonished--- (Reply to this comment)
by gaviidae
---by the degree of simil;arity between your views of this and my own, as you also noted in a comment on my entry.
You said:
The freedom of belief that is necessary to a progressive society is under threat in America.
Amen to that, Brother---if you'll excuse the expression! But I think that coin has two sides: the effort by fundamentalists to impose their behavioral standards on others, as you mentioned, but also the onslaught by liberals and intellectuals to ridicule, degrade and invalidate the religious beliefs of virtually ALL varieties of Christianity---as well as other religions---but especially the fundamentalists.
There is enough ambiguity in these subjects to warrant a degree of respect for all scholarship and belief---whether theological, philosophical, or scientific.
I liked your emphasis on marriage as a contract, and the related need for government involvement, a point utterly missed by many who have written here----
Regards,
Gavia
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May 12 '05
10:31 am PDT
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Amen, Brother! (Reply to this comment)
by trust12345
J1-
...to do so is as silly and self-deluding as I would be as an atheist, if I believed that there was an afterlife in heaven.
Aye, but I'm an atheist and I believe wholeheartedly in angels!
Just kidding. Another marvelous essay filled with sublime locutions and logic. Note, that is 'sublime' not in the sense of subsumed with religious fervor, of course. More like, "This strawberry short cake is sublime!"
-J2
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May 12 '05
7:26 am PDT
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